Tough call for me as well. I have the benefit of watching it multiple times. Nystrom was in position to play the puck, and instead did play the body. You can tell by his body language that he was uninterested in playing the puck and was going for the hit. If it is a suspension, it should only be for 1-2 games.

If I was handing out the suspension, I would probably give him 1-2 games at the most. He made no attempt to play the puck, and yet made contact with the head. At the same time, he was crouched and Nystrom had no time to react.

There is no requirement that he try and play the puck in that situation, so not sure how that makes it illegal. Letang had just had possession of the puck, so it wasn't a late hit. The ONLY thing that is a bit questionable is that Letang got grazed in the chin, but he ran into Nystrom's bicep, there was no elbow or anything there. Head was not principle point of contact, so there should be no Shanaban.

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Nystrom has his elbows down and the puck is right there for either of them to play. If he thinks that Letang is going to get the puck before him, doesn't he have a right to blow up Letang from handling the puck, i.e. Good Old Time Hockey? Eddie Shore? Had Letang not tried his best (and failure) Datsyuk impersonation, and taken the body hit, he would've been body blasted into the glass, probably written off as a hard and clean check. After watching the vid, it does not appear to me that Nystrom targets the head in any deliberate fashion.

Targeting the head does not have to be deliberate or intentional, it can also be defined as reckless targeting.

IMO Letang put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to the hit. There was no reckless (or deliberate) targeting of the head, no elbow comes up, and he didn't leave his feet. Kronwall never makes an attempt to play the puck with his hits, he shouldn't have to. He's using his body to separate the puck from the player. Legal.

There is no requirement that he try and play the puck in that situation, so not sure how that makes it illegal. Letang had just had possession of the puck, so it wasn't a late hit. The ONLY thing that is a bit questionable is that Letang got grazed in the chin, but he ran into Nystrom's bicep, there was no elbow or anything there. Head was not principle point of contact, so there should be no Shanaban.

Brendan Shanahan ‏ @NHLShanahan Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
...although it appears that the chin is grazed by the side of Nystrom's arm, the right chest and shoulder of Letang remain the PPOC. No SD.

Brendan Shanahan ‏ @NHLShanahan Reply Retweet Favorite · Open...although it appears that the chin is grazed by the side of Nystrom's arm, the right chest and shoulder of Letang remain the PPOC. No SD.

Makes sense.

Honestly watching it full speed it looked like a textbook headshot. Then on the replay you can see it's not and that Letang put himself in a vulnerable position. Just shows how hard it is for refs to catch this stuff in the game. Good on them for not tossing Nystrom for the hit.

Brutal but clean hit. What pisses me off more than anything, is that in the new NHL when a player gets rocked, the hitter is immediately sought after and play is stopped. It drives me absolutely crazy! What the hell happened to "remember" the hit and lay one back on him later on?

It's to the point where I'd almost like to see a penalty called for the person that causes the stoppage for those reasons within 10 seconds of a hit.

This one I'll kind of give a pass on because at full speed it was hard to tell if it was a headshot or exactly what happened.

But overall I agree. It's gotten ridiculous. I've heard people claim that's the way it's always been, but it goes against my memories of watching hockey since the early 80s.

Clean hard hits are a part of the game. Having fights after every big hit is yet another way to try to take hitting out of the game, this time by the players themselves.

I think the game has gotten so fast that many players on the ice may not see what actually took place, and when in doubt, or if they feel a teammate was taken advantage of it's the mentality of - "shoot 1st and ask questions later".

My memory is far from perfect, but what I do recall is that certain players like Gretzky, and our very own Stevie Y were deemed "untouchable", and if any opponent got a little too rough with them - well here's Mr. Probert, or Mr. McSorley...Heck - I can remember Gallant beating the snot outta Chelios back in the old Chicago Stadium because Cheli roughed up a very young guy by the name of Sergei Fedorov.

In those days I think intimidation played more of a role than it does in todays game, and when a teammate takes exception in todays game - it gets alot more attention.

I think the game has gotten so fast that many players on the ice may not see what actually took place, and when in doubt, or if they feel a teammate was taken advantage of it's the mentality of - "shoot 1st and ask questions later".

My memory is far from perfect, but what I do recall is that certain players like Gretzky, and our very own Stevie Y were deemed "untouchable", and if any opponent got a little too rough with them - well here's Mr. Probert, or Mr. McSorley...Heck - I can remember Gallant beating the snot outta Chelios back in the old Chicago Stadium because Cheli roughed up a very young guy by the name of Sergei Fedorov.

In those days I think intimidation played more of a role than it does in todays game, and when a teammate takes exception in todays game - it gets alot more attention.

That's how I remember it too.

There were the stars that if you took a run at, you'd likely be answering to someone like Probie or Semenko.

But now it's like every good hard hit results in teammates mugging the guy who threw the hit. I looked back at some old hockey vids on youtube, and there were a lot of huge hits--some of them even looked dirty--and the play kept going. Obviously that's a small sample, but it confirmed how I remembered it.

Big hits would make the games chippier overall. But they didn't immediately result in having to drop the gloves and fight just because you checked someone, like so often happens now.